Your Essential Crib Sheet for Writing Better, More Influential Tender Responses

We spend a lot of time reviewing bid submissions for our clients. Based on this experience we’ve put together a quick crib sheet covering common issues we come across.

​Feel free to use this guidance to improve your next bid. Or if you want some more direct and specific input please get in touch with the team at the Bid Coach and we’ll send help.

Our top bid writing tips:

• Answer the question asked completely and directly, meeting all the evaluation criteria. Don’t allow your bias to convince you that the aspects of the question you find easiest to answer will be the most important.
• Be absolutely technically correct. Use a peer review process if you can.
• Be within any stated restrictions (such as word counts, use of appendices, visuals etc). Your client won’t mind if they have less to read because you have been succinct and answered the question fully well within the word count.
• Stress the benefits to the client of the proposed solution – either as understood from the ITT or other relevant client documentation such as strategic plans etc. The answer should make it clear to the assessor that you understand the situation that the client is in and why they need solutions to the issues addressed through the tender.
• Make all answers easy to read, score and understand, even for people without the same technical knowledge as the author. Don’t try to impress with jargon or impressive-sounding words.
• Make sure your answers read from the perspective of the reader not the writer – in other words it isn't full of ‘we, ours or us.’
• Include supporting evidence to demonstrate that your solution is proven and that the client would not be taking a risk by appointing you. Clients are very risk averse and becoming more so.
• Chunk up your answers into short paragraphs to make it visually easy to digest.
• Ensure answers are clearly ‘labelled’ so it is easy for someone to cross-reference one section to another.
• Have no spelling or grammatical errors. Make sure that apostrophes are used correctly and only where needed.

The difference between winning and losing bids is often marginal. A bit more effort in making sure your answers are ‘on point’ and easy to follow could make all the difference.

Looking for an impartial ‘second eye’ on your proposal? Contact the Bid Coach.